


Any Other Name

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Making Out, geno is a Big man with Big feelings, issues of nomenclature, the KeyBank Challenge made me do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-20 14:50:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18127781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: “So I’ve noticed something,” Sid says, and Zhenya makes a face. Sid is using his Serious Captain Voice and he is using Personal Discussion Introductory Phrase No. 3.Fuck’s sake.





	Any Other Name

 

“So I’ve noticed something,” Sid says, and Zhenya makes a face. He doesn’t turn towards him, just flicks a puck up into the air so that he can neatly catch it on the flat of his stick blade. Sid is using his Serious Captain Voice and he is using Personal Discussion Introductory Phrase No. 3. **  
**

Fuck’s sake.

Zhenya does not want to have a personal discussion, Zhenya wants to get takeout sushi, go home, and fall asleep in front of the TV. He weighs his options.

 Brush Sid off, allowing him to remember that he just lost a contest with Zhenya and consequently spend the next three hours shooting pucks from the stands. Most likely making Zhenya stay until Sid manages to beat him.

Or, give in.

His stomach growls, making the decision for him. He sighs.

“What you notice?” he says, making sure to sound as long-suffering as possible. Let me go home, Sidney Patrick.

“Well. It’s your name. What you call yourself.”

Zhenya raises an eyebrow at him, and flips a puck so that it lands lightly on top of Sid’s foot.

“Ow, fuck off. What I mean is, you say Geno almost with an “a” at the end? And I was wondering why that is. I didn’t realize how seldom you say your own nickname out loud until you do and it sounds totally different.”

There’s a little furrow of captainly concern between his brows. It is not cute. Zhenya pokes it with his thumb, hard enough to rock Sid back, so he knows he’s being ridiculous, and not cute.

“Stop it. I’m just wondering if all along you w—“

“Not big deal, Sid,” Zhenya interrupts. Time to curtail this. “When I’m first come, agent tell me ‘Yevgeni’ in English is ‘Eugene.’ So I’m think, make like, small name. Like in Russia. You know.”

“Like Sasha for Alex.”

“Gross.That’s ugly one, but yes. So I’m make small. ‘Gena,” for ‘Eugene.’ Small name for friends. But agent say is name for girl. So, change to ‘Geno.’ Sound funny in Russian, so I’m sometimes forget and use other.”

There’s more to it, some shit about stressed and unstressed Russian vowel sounds, but he’s not about to try and explain further.

Sid is quiet for a moment, but he trails after Zhenya towards the dressing room, without insisting they stay for a million hours to practice trick shots. So that’s a win.

“What do you call yourself?” Sid asks. “Like, in your head. Is it like what your parents and Gonch call you?”

Zhenya eyes him skeptically. “Why ask this now?”

Sid’s face falls and he hunches his shoulders a little, “I know, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t ask you. Just went along with everything for years without bothering to find out what you really wanted. It’s your  _name_.”

Oh boy. He’s gearing up for a full blown attack of conscience. Have to get that shut down, too.

Zhenya lets himself fall over onto him, so that Sid has to plant his feet with a grunt of effort to hold them both up.

“G, stop.”

Zhenya sighs gustily, “Sidney, Sidney. It’s fine. Geno is fine, G is fine. I’m not care. Is special NHL American name. No one else have. Very cool, best name because is  _me_. And I’m best.”

It has the desired effect. Sidney chuckles and Zhenya can feel him relax a little. He leans back into Zhenya , forcing him to take back some of their combined weight. He’s solid and warm against Zhenya. He feels a wave of fondness, and it makes him want to do something more than just hang all over him.

He busses a noisy, exaggerated kiss to Sidney’s temple. He gets away with so much shit that people chalk up to him being foreign. And not, like, so fond of his captain that he feels too big for his skin sometimes.

Sidney, predictably, giggles and turns pink, faux-complaining as Zhenya just hangs over him further and nuzzles into his hair like an over-affectionate cat,

“So, I should keep calling you ‘G’ and not ‘Zhenya’?” Sid says. His lips are right by Zhenya’s ear and the name sounds so natural— too natural. Zhenya tries to ignore the traitorous thudding of his heart.

“What? You practice?” He pokes Sid’s ribs, expecting more giggling or sarcasm or retaliation. Not for Sid to twist so that he’s looking away from Zhenya, and for his ears and the back of his neck to flood scarlet.

He’s gone stiff in Zhenya’s arms. Zhenya loosens them, leans back a little. 

“Sid?”

“Yeah,” Sid says, still looking resolutely away.

Zhenya doesn’t quite know what’s wrong but he does know how to brazen his way through awkward situations.

“Sound okay. Maybe you practice more,” he says. “So bad Canadian mouth.” He tsks and leans in for another punitive head-nuzzle when Sidney turns abruptly back toward him and the corners of their mouths brush in a weird accidental almost-kiss.

To Zhenya’s shock, Sidney’s breath hitches and his lips part, and Zhenya  _knows_ what it means when someone looks at you like that.

He also knows, in a sudden rush of revelation, that the last thing on earth he wants right now is for Sid to laugh this off or pretend it didn’t happen.

He glances up and down the corridor. No one in sight, but no convenient unlocked closets or anything. In movies there’s always a convenient unlocked closet.

He’s losing the moment, Sid is pulling away from him. He had to act now.

Zhenya ducks his head, and kisses Sid, square on the mouth. Nothing joking or playful about it. He doesn’t want this to be mistaken for anything else.

Sid’s pushing at him. Zhenya’s heart sinks as they break apart, but to his amazement Sid keeps pushing until Zhenya’s back hits the opposite wall of the hallway.

His lips are obscenely red and his cheeks are flushed. His eyes are wide, pupils swallowing the hazel-gold of the irises.

Zhenya barely has time to absorb the full shock of seeing what Sid looks like well-kissed and wanting more, before Sid is on him, pressing him back to the wall and licking into his mouth like he’s starving for it. For Zhenya.

His hands are everywhere, frantic, like he thinks he needs to touch all of Zhenya before Zhenya changes his mind. Zhenya can only fist his hands in the back of Sid’s jersey and let himself be inundated.

He has to stifle a groan as Sid moves from his mouth to his neck. He tilts his head back to let him do as he likes.

Sid kisses like he plays hockey and Zhenya is afraid he’s going to fall to his knees right here on the linoleum. God, it’s so  _good_. How have they not been doing this for years?

“Mmm—“ Sid presses a bruising kiss to the hinge of his jaw. “ _Zhenya_.”

Zhenya shudders. “Stop,” he gasps, voice gone breathy and unrecognizable. Sid steps back instantly. Zhenya stares at him. His lips are so red he looks like he’s wearing lipstick. Oh, god.

“Go—“ he manages, and grabs at Sid when his face starts to fall and he turns away.

“No no no no—“ Zhenya yanks him back against Zhenya’s body. “ _We_  go. Find—“ No words come to him, in any language. He just wants  _more_  and he just wants  _Sid_.

“Ok, yeah,” Sid says, and he smiles, wide and goofy and ecstatic. “For sure.”

“Shhh,” Zhenya says, and starts to tug him down the hall. “Let’s go. Closet. Or car. Bathroom.”

Sidney laughs, his high, ridiculous real laugh. “I’m not gonna, uh, have sex with you for the first time in a closet, G.”

 _Sex_.

Zhenya’s eye go owl-wide. “Now. We go now. Now now now—“ he pushes at Sid and Sid laughs and laughs, letting Zhenya chivvy him along.

The dressing room and lounge area are deserted, thank god, Sid plants his feet when they reach their stalls, refusing to budge.

“I want to fuck you here, sometime. In your stall. With your gear on.”

Zhenya groans. “Worst, Sid,  _worst_. Stop talk. We go, now. Or dick fall off.”

Another fit of laughter. As he prods and hurries him along, Zhenya marvels. Sid is glowing like he’s just lifted the Stanley Cup above his head.

He can’t take it. In the dimly lit safety of the deserted parking garage he grabs him, wrapping Sid up tight in his arms and folding himself to bury his face in Sid’s neck.

“Oh, Zhenya,” Sid says, so sweet that Zhenya thinks he’s most likely going to die.

“I’m have, emotion,” he offers as incomplete explanation.

Sid laughs, soft and warm this time. He soothes his hand slowly up and down Zhenya’s back. “You always do. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know.”

“Stop,” he protests weakly. First scorching hot making out and now this sugary sweetness? Sid is a menace. Zhenya’s heart is going to explode. His  _dick_  is going to explode.

“Home, now,” he insists and Sid nods but still doesn’t fucking move.

“Not just once,” he says, looking suddenly nervous. “Not just one and done. I can’t—not with you.”

Zhenya nods briskly. Of course, of course. As if he or Sid could ever half-ass anything they did together.

“I’m in love with you,” Sidney says, emphatically. “You need to know that, going in, I’m- I-“

Zhenya surges forward and takes Sid’s earnest face between his hands.

He feels like he’s filled with fireworks, sparking and fizzing inside him.

“Sidney Crosby,” he intones. “Take. Me. Home.” He punctuates it with a decisive kiss.

And Sidney does, for once, as he’s told.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me as [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi!
> 
> Thanks to @cakemakethme and @malkinmecrazy on Tumblr for the photo still and the Russian language facts, respectively.


End file.
